With limited openings starting today for two of the most-anticipated art house films of the summer — the relationship dramedy “Cyrus” and the grim neo-noir “The Killer Inside Me” — we thought we’d take a quick look back at the films that we caught at festival appearances earlier this year.
Marketed as a “Step Brothers”-esque comedy, “Cyrus” is actually something much different, and surprisingly complex and rich. Pulling off a careful balance between broad comedy and darker dramatic notes, “Cyrus” is a mature, intelligent and yes, very funny look at the difficulties of a fledgling relationship in midlife. Our EIC caught the film at SXSW in March, and raved, calling the film “intoxicatingly sweet, endearingly amusing…and is easily the most enjoyable and crowd-pleasing picture of the year.” You can read the full review here.
Michael Winterbottom’s “The Killer Inside Me” arrives in theaters riding on a wave of controversy due to the intense, graphic violence against its female leads. Playlister Jon Davies saw the film at IFFBoston had a different take, remarking that, “the film’s violence (especially towards women), nowhere near as graphic as early comparisons to Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist” might suggest, is unsettling but never overdramatized to the point of calling too much attention to itself,” and going to say the film’s uneasy tenor is drawn from the film’s “jumpy tone, alternating between a frantic schizophrenia and an almost Lynchian sense of foreboding.” Check out his full review here.
Both films are definitely strong entries in the first half of 2010 and we encourage you to seek them out.
